The term ‘leak’ is a particularly efficient part of the poker vocabulary. While its meaning may not be instantly obvious (for the uninitiated, it’s a habitual mistake in your game that costs you money over time), its implications are abundantly clear. If your poker bankroll was a bucket of water, the last thing you’d want is a leak! Every time you made a bad decision another little fountain of water would spurt out, and unless you kept topping up you’d soon be bled dry. So, let’s look at some common mistakes that might be springing holes in your game.
Calling too much
This is perhaps the biggest leak around and the one that is going to see you losing chips at a steady pace for as long as you play. What is one of the first things you learn in poker? That by raising there are TWO ways of winning the pot. By putting other players to the test you either win the pot there and then (because they fold) or you may win when the hands go to showdown. By calling too much you only give yourself one way to win. Yes, you can justify it by saying that you’re trapping, but on the other side of that argument why don’t you want to put more chips in if you think you’re ahead? There is no one-size-fits-all solution to poker but if you take a long look at your game and see that you’re passively calling a lot then it’s time to consider folding or raising more often.
Paying off ABC players
You have bottom pair which you checked down from the flop onwards. There’s now just 4BB in the pot when MrABC_lolz bets 2BB into the middle. Everyone else folds, leaving you as the only sheriff left to keep law and order at the table. Maybe he’s stabbing at the pot because no one has shown any interest, but isn’t it more likely he’s rivered two pair or some kind of funky straight? Of course it feels great when you get it right and trap someone’s fingers in the cookie jar, but more often than not you’re just paying off an ABC player making a small value bet. But it’s only a couple of big blinds, right? Wrong, wrong, WRONG! All those little payoffs add up to a huge amount over time, and create a steady trickle of chips from your stack into other player’s pockets.
Drawing to dead hands
There are few things in poker that taste as bitter as when you manage to hit your draw only to find out that the player leading the betting was doing so with the nut draw. As you get all your chips into the middle, elation quickly shifts to despair as you groan, ‘How unlucky was that!?’ Drawing to the idiot end (bottom) of the straight is particularly weak, especially if you’re drawing for four to a straight! Opponents only need one card to be dominating you in that situation and against tricky aggressive players it’s even worse because when they represent the nuts you’re going to be put in a difficult position and, as we all know, easy decisions make for more profitable poker sessions.
Overvaluing hands
‘I has top pair. It’s the nutz!’ No, it’s not. In fact in most situations where big chips are moving around, top pair is in decidedly bad shape or is at least trying to dodge a large and scary draw. Just because you don’t stack off with top pair doesn’t mean you’re not overvaluing it though. How many times have you bet top pair, been check-raised and flat-called the raise without thinking before pretty much insta-folding to a chunky bet on the turn? I’m guessing the answer is ‘quite a lot’. I’m certainly not suggesting that you shouldn’t call with top pair, or that you should reraise every time either. Think about your opponent, their likely range and the board before you make a decision. And always consider your kicker!
Bet-sizing
This is an incredibly tricky area and something very open to interpretation, but you should recognise that betting $4 into a $36 pot just isn’t right (in the vast majority of situations). Whether you have a made hand or are representing one you should be making a bet significant enough that you’re charging players over the odds to draw to ‘catch up’. If in doubt a bet of around two-thirds of the pot should cover it. Check out 'A rough guide to bet sizing' if you’re in the dark about how many chips to push across that line.